KARACHI: With the aim to eradicate the crippling disease from the province, a five-day polio campaign — part of the National Immunisation Days (NIDs) — was launched across Sindh including its teeming capital, Karachi, on Monday, officials said.

The Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio in Sindh said the campaign would conclude on Thursday.

“This polio campaign is targeting 8.6 million children in all districts of Sindh including 2.4 million children in the six districts or 188 union councils of Karachi,” said an official in the EOC Sindh.

Officials said more than 56,000 teams were taking part in the campaign across the province out of which approximately 12,000 teams have been deployed in Karachi.

They said there had been five cases of polio in Pakistan so far this year — one each from Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Officials said the campaign kicked of smoothly in all the districts of Sindh and would continue for the next four days.

In Karachi, more than 5,000 policemen were providing security cover while the Rangers had also been tasked to patrol various thoroughfares and neighbourhoods.

Officials said the campaign was launched on time and no untoward incident was reported from Karachi or elsewhere.

They said the district administrations and health management teams had improved the situation but “there is no room for complacency as the virus can return at any time.”

“Parents must understand that to build immunity in children under five years of age, they must be vaccinated on multiple occasions,” said coordinator of the EOC Sindh, Fayaz Jatoi.

He requested parents to cooperate and get their children vaccinated in every campaign.

“Such is also the recommendation of all major private and government hospitals as well as the Pakistan Paediatric Association and the Pakistan Medical Association,” he said. “If parents conform to this advice, it will enable us to eradicate polio once and for all.”

The only case from Sindh has been reported from Karachi. Most other districts have been polio-free for many months.

“No case has been reported from central and northern parts of Sindh for more than one-and-a-half years,” said a senior official in the EOC Sindh.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2017